A closer look at Alex Stalock’s night in 3-2 win — and a chance to hear “Jaws” without the chomp

SAN JOSE – One thing we NHL beat guys have to like about the new CBA is that it mandates four days off for the players each month.

That translates to days off for us – or at least a light workday that maybe gives us time to focus on long-term stories or booking hotel rooms. Pro-rated, those four days translate to three in training camp and this is the first of those for the Sharks.

The Sharks eked out a 3-2 victory in Vancouver to open the exhibition season last night and the Merc had freelancer Kevin Woodley on the scene. His account that appeared in the paper is at http://www.mercurynews.com/sharks/ci_24110278/san-jose-sharks-beat-vancouver-canucks-3-2

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But Kevin, the managing editor of InGoal magazine as well as the writer covering the Canucks for nhl.com, also took a closer look at Alex Stalock’s night. Here’s what he passes along:

It was hardly an ideal way for start the season for San Jose Sharks backup hopeful Alex Stalock.

After making a couple good reaction saves off Ryan Kesler early – one blocker off the rush, and a glove snare on a labeled power play shot from the high slot – Stalock sat stagnant for long stretches, beaten by rookie Brendan Gaunce on a rebound he failed to steer into the corner later in the first period before another early burst in the second period was followed by more inactivity while his team buzzed Eddie Lack at the other end.

Stalock was beaten again on a sharp angle – but well placed – shot by another rookie, Hunter Shinkaruk, early in the third period to tie the game, but wound up a winner after Tommy Wingels converted the Sharks’s seventh power play with 3:53 left. Stalock finished with 14 saves and lots of time to think.

All that standing around made it hard to establish much of a rhythm in his first shot at winning the battle with Harri Sateri to back up Vezina Trophy finalist Antti Niemi this season.

“It’s one of those games where the other guy is seeing rubber non-stop, shot after shot, and they get nothing for a while and then, boom, they come down and get one,” Stalock said. “You see the other end, the guys is getting work non stop, doesn’t have to think, just react, make saves and you are sitting there and that’s when you get in trouble and your mind starts wandering.”

Stalock tried to keep his from doing so by playing the puck whenever he had the chance, something coach Todd McLellan praised him for after the game.

“He was good at moving the puck s he helped our young d-men out,” McLellan said.
Stalock wanted to review the tape on both goals. An aggressively positioned goalie with the foot speed to recover that extra distance, he was well outside his crease when a Dale Weisse rush shot through a partial screen from the top of the right faceoff circle seemed to handcuff him a little, leaving the rebound in a dangerous spot and Stalock diving back head first to try and take the empty net away from Gaunce on the backdoor.

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“He just threw a grenade at the net and that’s what they’re told to do,” Stalock said.
The second goal, scored from below the left faceoff circle and just above the goal line raised a few more eyebrows, but McLellan joined the Canucks in praising Shinkaruk, a first round pick this summer, for picking the top corner with a perfect shot.

“Hell of a shot,” said McLellan, who also praised Stalock for his play early in the first two periods, when the Canucks had two power plays. “You might say he’d like that back, but he put it in a tiny, tiny hole.”

Again, Stalock wanted time to look at it again on tape.

“We’ll take a look at that second one, but the guy made a heck of a shot,” he said.

****Kevin, by the way, also covers the Canucks for nhl.com. He reached two milestones at Monday night’s game – his 40th birthday and the 5,000th follower for @KevinisInGoal. We’ll give Sharks fans a little credit for the latter and hope they stick with him for insights into the minders of the net.

****The other two days off during training camp are the next two Sundays, Sept. 22 and 29. Guessing NHL players and coaches welcome the opportunity to watch a few NFL games, too.

****While Kevin Woodley was working, I set the DVR and headed to San Francisco to be in the presence of greatness in another field. The San Francisco Symphony had Steven Spielberg and composer John Williams at Davies Hall for a program on film scores and I lucked out with two eighth row aisle seats at the last minute.

I mention this here primarily because Williams – think “Star Wars” and “Indiana Jones” and just about every other film soundtrack going through your head – used his familiar-to-Sharks-fans theme from “Jaws” to introduce Spielberg. I looked around the symphony hall at the time and if anyone was doing the chomp, it eluded me.

Anyway, totally worth the rush-hour drive north for a great night of film scores even if it meant staying up till almost 2 a.m. afterward watching the Sharks beat Vancouver in a game that doesn’t count in the standings.

David Pollak

David Pollak has been following the NHL forever and at the Mercury News as an editor or reporter since 1987. For almost a decade he wrote about the Sharks as the paper's Fan in the Stands before joining the sports department in 2001. He became the Sharks beat writer before the 2007-08 season and began this blog at that time. You can also follow him on Twitter at @PollakOnSharks.

I didn’t think either goal was too bad, considering that this was the first game of preseason. Sure, the first could have been prevented with a bit better rebound control but…

Clemenza

It was good to see a little Nor Cal hockey back on the tube. It’s gonna be a long 2 weeks!

As always, thanks Mr. P & co!!

Phat Stat Phil

Nice seeing the Sharks play again. Stewart had pretty good presence.

I do wonder what we’re going to end up doing with Pelech. Pretty deep minus last year and spent a lot of time in the box. A bunch of those were five minute stints, but it seemed like there were a lot of exasperating penalties.

I have to say that Stalock looked better in the preseason, though that Shinkaruk shot never should have gone in. Take nothing away from Shinkaruk — it was a great shot — but it looked like Stalock left a lot of space between his back and the post in the butterfly.

Is anyone else conflicted about Pavs continuing his role trying to screen the goaltender and get to rebounds?

hockeyhappens

Hockey is just starting isn’t it? I thought so. Preseason? Yep. Just checking.

—thought bubble—

I am hoping mid-season form isn’t expected from the newest and/or least experienced players just learning an NHL system and what the intensity is all about for a couple people in their first NHL level minutes and shifts in a pre-season game.
—end thought bubble—

Since DP and the Merc attempted to destroy all evidence of Pavs failure to score in the series the Sharks have been eliminated in for the past 5 seasons, by deleting the comments, I think anything that gets him scoring is a plus.

Kidding aside, he’s definitely not built for screening and scrambling in front of the net. Though, I would like the Sharks across the board to attempt to screen the goalie more often. How many times do we see a goalie gain momentum and confidence from easy saves on shots he could see the whole time because the Sharks don’t screen or don’t screen properly? Getting the right personnel in front of the goalie is the key. Pavs should be the one firing pucks to the net.

JasonB

enough of this idle talk – time to discus something important….like why boyle and couture were dropped on the season tickets and replaced with vlassic and torres. I’m ok with vlassic…but my warm and fuzzy for torres isn’t strong enough yet to see him on the tickets.

Or maybe, i just need to spend some more time in full sunlight and away from pointy objects…

Gdub44

Like the new site. Really hoping for Hertl to hang on and impress. It would be a fun storyline to follow through the season. Also…I’m thinking this is probably it for Petrecki. There isn’t any room for him and I just don’t think he’s ever really put it all together. Shame…I had such high hopes.

Phat Stat Phil

For what it’s worth, he was doing that duty last season. Doing a quick bit of analysis, I find that of the 20 goals he scored (16 in the regular season, 4 in the playoffs), five of them were off of what I’d consider to be a rebound.

(A rebound in this case is a goal which has a missed shot, shot on goal, or blocked shot in the preceding five seconds.)

Of those 5, the shot distances can be normalized to 2 under 10 feet from the net, 2 under 20 feet from the net, and 1 under 30 feet from the net.

In addition, he had two which were deflections. One was his center ice deflection that beat Schneider in game 3 — and oh, how i enjoyed chanting Schneiiiiiiiiider after that one — and one in the regular season from under 20 feet from the net.

Throw out the center ice deflection and the < 30 foot rebound — those don't seem like they fit the mould — and that would make five of his twenty goals from sitting in front of the goaltender. A 25% conversion's actually pretty good when you consider that about a third of the goals scored in the NHL on average are the results of rebounds.

Buddy Elf

I don’t know if “conversion” is the right terminology, but I understand what you’re trying to convey.

Plus, if his “garbage goal” % was 25% and the league average is 33%, he’s below average.

I would be shocked if a majority of those 5 were a result of him screening and then cleaning it up. I would guess most of them are a result of him crashing the net in conjunction with the shot, being poised for the rebound.

I began pulling up the video and I only had time to watch the playoffs goals, but none of them were a result of being planted in front of the goalie screening. Only once was he even in front of the goalie, but he arrived at the same time as the puck so it wasn’t in a screening role. The rest were arriving to the high slot either for a one-timer or to bury the rebound. (Which is what I like him doing… not being in the screening role, but either being the one shooting, or being available to get to the rebounds.)

So,if you take the 2 that were rebounds but not in a screening role, and the 1 deflection (in which he arrived at the same time as the puck), that’s 3… I don’t know which of those 3 were included in your 5, but I wouldn’t count them as describing the role you initially described that i responded to.

i will try to watch all of the videos of his goals tonight and report back.

John E Cook

Look again Logan is on sheet 1 second slot (game B) Boyle does get his mug to the left of the season ticket holder card.

Phat Stat Phil

Think of it in terms of actual numbers. 33% of 20 is 6.6666… and 25% of 20 is 5. I’m not going to call someone below average on 1 and 2/3s of a goal. ; )

I recall from a few examples that these were pretty easy to find on youtube by giving the date, player, and goal. I'd jump on it myself, but I'm cheating on hockey right now with another sport. ; )

Buddy Elf

That’s some funny math… the league wide are out of a much bigger pool with a wider range of players and shot types, etc…

Regardless, rebounds do not equal being planted in front of the goalie (which was your original premise as to the rebounds reflecting him in the role, the role of screening the goalie)

4/23 – arrived just before the shot… had enough time to stop.. (not planted in front of goalie)

5/7 (3rd) – he was off to the side, not in front of goalie.

5/7 (1st) – skated to high slot, got the rebound, spinarama, and goal… not planted in front

4/18 – Not even in the conversation… torres before the FO dots hits a player, it goes right to pavs who buries it.

3/2 – Interesting… Pavs WAS in front of the goalie (On powerplay) on an initial shot, then takes it behind the net and wraps around for the goal. So in that role initially, but didn’t score while in that role.

2/5 – Pavs arrives at the crease as a point shot isn’t gobbled up… very frustrated by reading the box score of that game as Desi’s misconduct was ridiculous, and Sharks were on their way to beating Chi. Oh well.

All of that to say, you brought up the rebounds to say he was in the “screening the goalie” role… only one of those was he in the role, and he wasn’t when he scored.

He is pretty awesome at being where the rebound will be based on those videos.

Phat Stat Phil

Fair enough. It’s sort of a guessing game trying to make sense of the NHL play-by-play sheets. Obviously, the nuances here don’t come out the way I thought I did.

I’m initially tempted to say that you could watch a few videos of any player scoring and come to the same conclusion about being where the rebound will be, but to be honest, that’s always been one of his greatest strengths.

What I should probably do is compile a list of rebounds that he didn’t cash in on. Not that it’ll help clarify which of the goals he was in front of the net for, but I know he practiced screening the goalie, jumping to turn around, and trying to cash in on rebounds.

If nothing else, watching those videos ought to be enough to turn you back to old Buddy Elf where you point out that Pavs isn’t as good as everyone says because he doesn’t contribute points in elimination series. ; )

Buddy Elf

I did notice a lack of goal videos for Pavs in the series vs the Kings. =)

Re: videos of goals adding to perception. This is definitely a danger, but I do watch most Sharks games and the videos were simply confirmations of the fact I already knew… Pavs is good at getting to where the rebound ends up. Obviously, this doesn’t happen everytime, but it happens quite a bit.

I don’t hate Pavs and can easily acknowledge his strengths (unlike those around here who have strange vendettas against Sharks players to the point they can never acknowledge anything good without it being a backhanded compliment).

My main reason for reiterating Pavs inability to score when it matters most, is that it’s the same (incorrect) criticism given to Marleau. They say he disappears and shouldn’t be a leader… yet in the same breath they often say Pavs should be a leader instead. And as the painfully long history shows, Pavs disappears when it matters most.

I’ve enjoyed the conversation…

Plus, now I know how to find video of any goal.

NHL.COM … Search the player in question, go to game Log, click the Date of the game and go to Boxscore, and you can see all of the videos.